Sad little lemmings

I feel bad for most people. They're little sad lemmings and they don't even realize it.

I was assigned to a road under construction for some night paving. The construction crews had placed barricades across the road along with signs in plain, easy to understand English informing them the road was closed and pointing them to a detour. God forbid some people have to take a route different from what they're used to. They panic, they argue, and some just plain try to ignore direction.

If all the cones, barricades, and signs weren't enough, I sat in a marked police car, with my emergency lights activated. "Surely, there couldn't be any confusion to people," I thought.

I bet on the wrong horse that night. I had people scream at me, demanding to be let through because "that's the way they need to go." I even had one person drive around the signs, cones, and my cruiser and tell me I didn't have the authority to keep him from driving through.

I'm only human and even though my patience for dealing with fools has increased by millions since the days before I was a cop, I still have a temper. The last gentlemen mentioned above pissed on my last nerve and although I didn't unload both barrels from point blank, I lost enough control to call him an "illiterate moron." He in turn vowed to have my badge taken from me.

I'm still proud that I didn't haul off and smash the top of his head with my metal clipboard. I'm not ready to lose my career and spend some time in the clinker, so imagining a physical and verbal thrashing will have to do.